Soon
by Austenwoolf
Summary: An addition to 'My Beloved Wife'


Disclaimer: Blah, Blah, Blah, you know the drill. Paramount owns them not me  
  
Setting: I know I said the story I did a few weeks ago called 'My Beloved Wife' was done, but you should never believe anything I say. This little snippet just poked its head out and I decided to give it a platform from which to speak. So this is set in the same time frame, after Deanna's funeral.  
  
Soon  
(A continuation of 'My Beloved Wife')  
  
The house was finally quite, everyone else had gone home to their loved ones, home to live their own lives. Will walked the empty halls and rooms examining each piece of art, touching each knickknack as if it were a relic from another life. His head swirled with memories, and snippets of imagery. He knew he should go to bed, knew he should stop torturing himself but he felt the overwhelming need to touch everything she had touched, to walk everywhere she had walked.  
  
The house was filled with her essence, her perfume, and, if Will listened hard enough, her voice. They had moved into the Troi mansion after their retirement, but only with the agreement that they split their time between Earth and Betazed. However as they got older and the chill of Alaska settled uncomfortably in their bones, they ended up spending more of their time at the Troi mansion. Deanna had taken a lot of care in making the house comfortable for Will. She had done away with the glittering ostentatious décor that Lwaxana preferred, and lovingly picked out colors and art that fit their taste more.  
  
Now he walked among their possessions, and smiled at the memories each brought back. There was the marble sculpture they had bought on Earth the last time they were there. The grandfather clock Jean-Luc and Beverly had given them shortly before his death. The leather bound books that Deanna began collecting while still serving aboard the Enterprise.  
  
He had already inspected the rooms on the lower floor and now there was only one more place to go, their bedroom. It was not a room he wanted to be in, it was there that his memories of lazy Sunday mornings and nights with her wrapped in his arms lived. It was there that she spent her last weeks of life, and there that she gave up the fight.  
  
As Will walked slowly up the grand staircase to the second floor he felt a since of dread grow in his chest. He did not want to see the empty room, didn't want to slip into a cold lonely bed. She used to read in bed, waiting for him to slip in beside her. She told him once it was hard to get to sleep without him; he had laughed at the time and promised she would never sleep alone again if he could help it. Now he felt a flash of anger, how could she leave him alone? How could she just give up and leave him to face his life alone?  
  
The anger carried him the rest of the way up the stairs, but quickly evaporated when he reached the closed door that led to their bedroom. He paused outside it, trying to muster the courage to go in. 'Stop it you old fool', he chastised himself, 'it's not like she's haunting the place.' Nevertheless, she was, she was haunting his mind, and there was no running from that. He straightened his age-bent back as much a possible and quickly touched the control panel, causing the door to swish open. The lights snapped on, Will took a deep breathe, and stepped in.  
  
The room had been cleaned and aired since her death and Will silently thanked whoever had done it. The window was open, and the smell of the hyacinth Deanna had planted last spring wafted into the room.  
  
Will went to Deanna's vanity and scanned the bottles of perfume, opened her jewelry box but shut it quickly when he saw all the little trinkets he had ever given her staring back at him. He opened the closet doors only to be hit by her exotic smell that still clung to her clothing. He picked up an ancient book that rested on Deanna's nightstand, the collected works of Lord Byron; he had given it to her for her birthday over nine years ago.  
  
He sat on the edge of the bed and flipped through the book quickly. He wanted to cry, but there were no more tears left, only a hollow pain, a numbness that weighed his limbs and rested heavily on his chest. He was suddenly weary his eyes began to feel dry and heavy, and he propped himself up in the bed, clutched the book to his chest and closed his eyes.  
  
During the years of their marriage Will had gotten into the habit of opening his mind to Deanna and giving her what amounted to a mental 'good- night kiss'. Now out of sheer habit he opened his mind and reached out for her, even as he did, he knew there would be no answer in return, there would never be an answer again, but he did it anyway.  
  
'Good-night Imzadi, I miss you, I wish I could hold you again.' His mind let go and he slowly began to drift into the gray area that marks the line between sleep and wakefulness. Suddenly, as if from a distance vaster than man can measure, he heard a response. It was one word, but it was enough.  
  
'Soon.'  
  
The End-and this time I mean it (or do I). 


End file.
